The institution of science is said to be under pressure from political, economic and social interests, manifested in alleged bureaucratization, managerial reforms, anti-intellectual movements on university campuses, and widespread questioning of expert knowledge in society. Commercialization of academic publishing and the growth of competitive funding have increased the importance of journal and grant peer review in science and seem also to have contributed to the proliferation of false impressions about the nature of scientific knowledge production and science’s role in society. In this article, these developments are problematized and put into perspective with the help of classic sociological theory in a Weberian and Mertonian tradition, in an attempt to shed new light on the debate on the governance and institutional autonomy of science. First, academic science is identified as a Weberian value sphere with “internal and lawful autonomy” (Eigengesetzlichkeit), and the broader functionalist context of this supposition is discussed. Second, Merton’s theory of the normative structure of science is used to give specific content to Eigengesetzlichkeit in the case of science. Third, the concept of organized skepticism is developed to represent a range of social patterns ubiquitous in scientific practice, and its epistemological and sociological foundations are discussed. Organized skepticism is thus identified as the essential feature of science’s Eigengesetzlichkeit.

据说科学机构正承受着政治，经济和社会利益的压力，表现为所谓的官僚主义，管理改革，大学校园内的反智力运动以及社会对专家知识的普遍质疑。学术出版的商业化和竞争性资金的增长，增加了科学期刊和授予同行评审的重要性，并且似乎也加剧了对关于科学知识生产的本质和科学在社会中的作用的错误印象。在本文中，这些发展受到了质疑，并在韦伯和默顿的传统中借助经典的社会学理论加以阐明，以期为科学的治理和制度自主性的辩论提供新的思路。第一的，Eigengesetzlichkeit），并讨论了这种假设的更广泛的功能主义背景。其次，默顿的科学规范结构的理论来给出具体的内容Eigengesetzlichkeit在科学的情况下。第三，发展了组织怀疑主义的概念，以代表科学实践中普遍存在的一系列社会模式，并讨论了其认识论和社会学基础。因此，有组织的怀疑主义被认为是科学的“自我批评”的基本特征。